JUDGMENT

1. In this case the Commissioner of Income Tax, Burma, under Section 66 (1) has referred for the determination of the Court the following question:

Is the sum of Rs. 7,822 received by the assessee taxable in his hands ?

2. The sum in question was paid to Mr. R. Johnstone, the assessee, by Lord Inchcape. It appears that the assessee and four other persons had been in the service of the British India Steam Navigation Co. as pursers, and afterwards had been taken into the employment of Messrs. Bulloch Bros. & Co., Ltd. This company among other business acted as an agent in Rangoon for the British India Steam Navigation Co.

3. Now, Lord Inchcape, like his father before him, was interested in the affairs of the British India Steam Navigation Co., and the late Lord Inchcape was also a shareholder in Messrs. Bulloch Bros. & Co., Ltd. It further appears that there was an understanding between certain employees of Messrs. Bulloch Bros. & Co., Ltd. including the assessee and the company that upon the termination of their engagement each of such employees would receive from the company a gratuity if their services had been satisfactory. According to the case that has been stated, however, the company was not bound to pay the gratuity to its employees, for the fund '' was entirely at the disposal of the company." Unfortunately in 1932 Messrs. Bulloch Bros. & Co., Ltd. went into liquidation, and the assessee lost not only his means of livelihood as am employee of the company, but also - the gratuity which he expected that he would have received from the company when he left their employment.

4. Soon after the company had gone into liquidation the present Lord Inchcape came to Rangoon, and " was made aware of the plight in which the assessee and other employees of the company stood." No doubt, feeling that he was specially concerned with the well-being of persons like the assessee and the four other ex-pursers who had served in the British India Steam Navigation Co., Ltd., Lord Inchcape was good enough to pay to these five persons respectively sums equivalent to the whole of the gratuity which they expected that they would have received from Messrs, Bulloch Bros, & Co., Ltd. if that company had not become insolvent. On making these payments, Lord Inchcape received from the recipients an assignment of any right to a gratuity which they respectively might have against Messrs. Bulloch Bros. & Co., although for the purpose in hand none of the recipients are to be regarded as possessing any legal right to claim a gratuity from the company, In these circumstances this sum of Rs. 7,822 has been assessed to income tax upon the ground that it falls within Section 6 (vi) and Section 12 of the Act as being income derived from '' other sources." The Assistant Commissioner conceded that the sum in question was not chargeable under the head " salaries " in Section 7(1) because it was " not paid by an employer " and it is not pretended or contended that when he made this payment to the assessee, Lord Inchcape was acting or purporting to act as the agent of Messrs. Bulloch Bros. & Co. (In re The Commissioner of Income Tax, Burma v. Bombay Burma Trading Corporation.) In my opinion it is manifest also that this sum of Rs. 7,822 was not income of the assessee derived from " other sources " within Section 6 (vi).

5. In Commissioner of Income Tax, Bengal v. Shaw Wallace and Company, SIR GEORGE LOWNDES, delivering the judgment of the Judicial Committee, observed:

The object of the Indian Act is to tax " income " a term which it does not define. It is expanded, no doubt, into ' income, profits and gains,' but the expansion is more a matter of words than of substance. Income, their Lordships think, in this Act connotes a periodical monetary return ' coming in' with some sort of regularity or expected regularity, from definite sources. The source is not necessarily one which is expected to be continuously productive, but it must be one whose object is the product